AuthorTopic: Yasuko Namba (Read 23276 times)

???I am trying to find out more information about Yasuko Namba, who was briefly the oldest woman to have ascended the seven summits. She died descending Everest in the May 1996 disaster. Can anyone help?

???I am trying to find out more information about Yasuko Namba, who was briefly the oldest woman to have ascended the seven summits. She died descending Everest in the May 1996 disaster. Can anyone help?

Hi TeresaLittle is known about Yasuko Namba, but here's what we found so far; this will be on the soon to be released detail page of Yasuko:

(addition sept 2002: the detail page is released and can be found here[/i]

As most know, in May of 1996 the worst mountain climbing disaster in history occurred on the world’s highest mountain. That May, two large groups of climbers were climbing to the top of Mount Everest when a bad storm started. Many of the climbers were lost in the snow. Some found the camp. Some did not. Dr. Weathers was left for dead on the mountain, but the next day, while the other survivors were resting, he walked into the camp. In all, five climbers from the two expeditions died, including Yasuko Namba from Japan. At forty-seven years old, she was the oldest woman to reach to top of Mount Everest. Sadly, she lost her life on the way down.

"I think the accident was due to abnormal weather observed in mountains around the world," said Michiko Imai,54, a Tokyo doctor and climber."I think few people were able to forecast the unusual blizzard that hit Namba and other climbers on Mt.Everest."Imai said Namba was not a type of climber who goes up a mountain to set a record: "She likes to climb amountain that she likes. Since she is a type of climber who makes thorough preparations beforehand, I don'tthink she made any technical mistakes in the mountain."

Yasuko Namba of Ota Ward, Tokyo was a 47 year old Federal Express worker.

"Anatoli (Boukreev), has said publicly and in print that, yes, he saw Yasuko Namba when he went onto the South Col in the storm in the early hours of May 11, 1996, but he has always said that he never saw Weathers until later that afternoon when he stumbled into Camp IV. To that I would add that Anatoli to the day of his death, felt remorse over not having been able to save Yasuko Namba's life. His failure to enlist her Adventure Consultants' team members to assist him in a rescue effort he took personally. His inability, after having led three other climbers to safety, to return to her, haunted him -- so much so that the next year on April 28, 1997, while descending Everest with the Indonesian National Team, he constructed a cairn of stones around her body to protect her from scavenging birds. A few days later he sat in a teahouse on the trekking trail to Everest and in tears apologized to Yasuko Namba's husband for not having been able to save his wife's life. Despite the inability of the Adventure Consultants' team to rally and come to Yasuko's aid, Anatoli never blamed her death on her teammates."

John Krakauer, in his original account:"Here (at a series of rock steps at 28000ft), the impatience and technical inexperience of Namba nearly caused a disaster. A businesswoman who liked to joke that her husband did all the cooking and cleaning, Namba had become famous back in Japan for her Seven Summits globe-trotting, and her quest for Everest had turned into a minor cause c‹lŠbre. She was usually a slow, tentative climber, but today, with the summit squarely in her sights, she seemed energized as never before. She'd been pushing hard all morning, jostling her way toward the front of the line. Now, as Beidleman clung precariously to the rock 100 feet above, the overeager Namba clamped her ascender onto the dangling rope before the guide had anchored his end of it. Just as she was about to put her full body weight on the rope-which would have pulled Beidleman off-guide Mike Groom intervened and gently scolded her."